Articles Posted by browardchad

...Millions of measurements, global coverage, consistently rising temperatures, case closed: The Earth is warming. Except for one problem. CRU’s average temperature data doesn’t jive with that of Vincent Courtillot, a French geo-magneticist, director of the Institut de Physique du Globe in Paris, and a former scientific advisor to the French Cabinet. Last year he and three colleagues plotted an average temperature chart for Europe that shows a surprisingly different trend. Aside from a very cold spell in 1940, temperatures were flat for most of the 20th century, showing no warming while fossil fuel use grew. Then in 1987 they shot up...

From across the banks of the Sheboygan River, after night fell in tiny Kiel, there was a final beauty in the flickering lights spread across Veteran’s Memorial Park.Hundreds of mourners, friends and family of Amy Krueger, strangers too who came to learn who she was – and wonder why she died – burned candles in her memory and slowly lifted them aloft. Held them there.This is a place, a small town far from Fort Hood, where the 29-year-old soldier’s memory will be held forever – where the monument near the dais where they cried and sang is for all those...

Scott Andrews / AP Message to you out-of-towners heading to Washington, D.C. for your first presidential inauguration: You will be miserable.January 20 is shaping up to be the inauguration celebration of our lifetimes. Which is fitting, because there’s a dirty little secret about Washington, D.C., and the inaugural balls: if you’ve ever been to one, you’ll never go back. Inaugurals are a miserable experience. This will come as sad news to the Obamaphiles who forked over checks for $50,000 to be granted the title of “finance chair” for the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC). It will probably be even sadder...

A man managed to crash a sport utility vehicle through two sliding-glass doors and into a ticket counter at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Sunday, stunning travelers and raising concerns about airport security on a holiday when much of the nation was on heightened alert. There were no serious injuries and officials were quick to say the crash was not a terrorist act, but that was little consolation to people sent scrambling for cover as shards of glass flew in all directions. While airport security has been tight this Fourth of July weekend, there was nothing in place that could...

OUTRAGEOUS CHENEY QUOTE [Ramesh Ponnuru] My eyes just about popped out of my head when I read this passage from a front-page story in the Washington Post today: "Cheney was less forthcoming when asked about Saudi Arabia's ties to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 hijackers. 'I don't want to speculate,' he said, adding that Sept. 11 is 'over with now, it's done, it's history and we can put it behind us.'" I was going to write an attack on Cheney for Corner readers, but I figured I should check the transcript of Cheney's remarks to make sure he...

<p>The battle of Iraq may be over but the warriors for peace struggle on. Theirs is not an easy road, particularly, we hear, in the entertainment industry, which is packed with notables fresh from their vocal campaign against the war, the president, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney--objects of scorn in all the best circles, from Paris to California.</p>

An Ottawa telecommunications engineer who was deported to Syria by the United States last fall is about to be charged by Syrian officials with terrorist-related activity, leaving virtually no hope for his return to Canada.The pending charges are the latest development in the mysterious case of Maher Arar, who was arrested by U.S. immigration officials during a stopover at a New York airport last September while returning to Canada from a family visit overseas."This is very discouraging," said Ottawa-area MP Marlene Catterall, who saw Mr. Arar last week in Damascus. "The whole thing leaves me somewhat astonished."Ms. Catterall said...

PORTLAND — Federal prosecutors on Monday (April 28) charged a former Intel Corp. engineer with allegedly conspiring to aid Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as part of a move to “levy war” against the United States, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News on Tuesday (April 29). The ex-Intel engineer, Maher “Mike” Hawash, was arrested in March and has been held by the U.S. government without charge as part of what the report called a “secret investigation.” Hawash, 38, a U.S. citizen of Arab descent, worked for Intel from 1992 to 2001, when he was laid off....

<p>Washington, April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Immigrants who have finished serving criminal sentences can be held in custody while the government tries to deport them, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled.</p>
<p>Such people aren't entitled to a chance to gain release by showing they are not a flight risk or a danger to the community, the 5-4 decision said. The court ruled for the Bush administration's appeal in the case of a South Korean man who faces possible deportation after being convicted of burglary and petty theft.</p>

AGHDAD, Iraq, April 25 — A religious edict issued in Iran and distributed to Shiite mullahs in Iraq calls on them "to seize the first possible opportunity to fill the power vacuum in the administration of Iraqi cities."The edict, or fatwa, issued on April 8 by Kadhem al-Husseini al-Haeri, an Iraqi-born cleric based in the Iranian holy city of Qum, suggests that Shiite clerics in Iraq are receiving significant direction from Iran as they try to assert the power of Iraq's long-oppressed religious majority. It is not yet clear how much popular support Mr. Haeri and other clerics emerging...

One day after the White House cancelled a trip by President George Bush to Canada due to what it said was lack of time, it announced the president would host the Prime Minister of Australia at his ranch in Texas.The decision illustrates two trends in Washington. First, countries that opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq will be punished. Canada refused to support the war and, although it is the US's biggest trading partner and a neighbour, it is out of favour.Second, countries that demonstrated loyal support will be rewarded. John Howard is not just invited to visit the president but...

ast week, in a resounding victory for the Department of Justice, U.S. Magistrate Mark Pizzo declared Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami al-Arian ineligible for bail. Al-Arian will now likely spend the next two years in federal custody awaiting trial.With masterful detail and simplicity, the prosecutors from the Department of Justice and U.S. Attorneys’ Office exposed the depths of al-Arian’s unconscionable immorality. Reflecting on the government’s proffered evidence in the hearing, Pizzo affirmed that the “government’s case against Al-Arian is both substantial and convincing.” In a 29-page decision magnifying the profound significance of this case, Pizzo poignantly explained how Al-Arian’s...

KUWAIT CITY, April 1 (UPI) -- The war entered its decisive phase Tuesday as midday temperatures in central Iraq soared toward 100 degrees and U.S. forces advanced into Iraq's so-called Red Zone around Baghdad, where local commanders may have authority to use chemical weapons, coalition leaders say.The best of Iraq's conventional forces, five Republican Guard divisions, have now been identified gathering south of Baghdad for what looks to be the decisive battle of the war. Coalition military intelligence sources add that a sixth RG Division, the al-Adnan, is also reported moving south from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit to join...

In an intensified effort to divide Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from his inner circle, U.S. military and intelligence officers in recent days have communicated with some Iraqi commanders and have secretly designated buildings in the capital for defectors to occupy, promising they will not be targeted by U.S. airstrikes, senior U.S. officials said yesterday. U.S. military and intelligence officers have also gained promises from some Iraqi commanders that they will not fire chemical weapons at American ground forces, the officials said. However, U.S. officials said they are monitoring one Republican Guard unit outside Baghdad that they believe has been issued...

WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia's latest public relations gambit is a halfmillion dollar donation funneled through an American charity and aimed at stocking America's public libraries with Saudi-approved books and tapes about Islam. The $500,000 donation from Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud is to the Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR was founded in 1994 by Nihad Awad, a man who has openly expressed support for Hamas, a group the American government says is a terrorist organization. CAIR's New York chapter has floated bizarre conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks. Fifteen of the September 11 hijackers...

Jerry Falwell is a bigot and idiot for calling the prophet Mohammed a "terrorist." Such comments should be denounced from every quarter. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesperson for the Council on American-Islamic Relations said, "When it comes to hate, silence equals consent." Hooper's statement is beautiful and absolutely right. Yet CAIR and other Muslim-American organizations are strangely mute when it comes to the diarrhea of hate spewing from mosques and madrassahs all over the Middle East. Every Friday, imams and grand muftis at mosques in Yemen, Qatar, Iraq, and even the holy mosque in Mecca, pray: "O God, destroy the Jews, destroy...

I am probably going to catch high holy hell for writing this article. But I have to. I have to because nobody is saying this publicly, although a lot of people are thinking it. First of all, every media outlet in the world has been falling all over themselves praising Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose. Theoretically, this sniper pair was caught only after vociferous digging, and many man hours of diligent police work, with the help of honest citizens willing to tell the police about any suspicion about anything they may have had. Bull puckey. Law enforcement really...

LYNNWOOD -- City police are looking into the possibility that Washington, D.C.-area sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad was responsible for shooting up the Lynnwood Police Department in 2000. Lynnwood officials already have confirmed that Muhammad performed maintenance on city vehicles -- including its police cruiser fleet -- under a contract that was terminated in October 1999. The contract ended after a dispute between Muhammad and city officials, who claimed Muhammad provided poor service.

<p>Suddenly, Washington is awash in nostalgia for the safety and security of the Cold War. Mutual assured destruction, MAD as it was and for all of the terror it inspired in the imagination, was based on reason and logic.</p>
<p>When Jack Kennedy told Nikita Khrushchev he would not allow Russian missiles in Cuba, and made him believe it, the Russians turned their ships around. The gamble paid off because both sides knew the rules of the game. When Ronald Reagan told Mikhail Gorbachev at the Reykjavik summit that he would never give up the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Soviet leader, with a hard-headed understanding of the economics of an arms race he couldn't win, threw in his cards. We didn't know it at the time but it was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.</p>

(Richmond-AP) -- A spokesman says Governor Mark Warner has not received any requests from local governments in Virginia to limit the hunting season because of the sniper attacks. Kevin Hall, a spokesman for Warner, says the governor would consider limiting the recreational use of firearms if local officials were to ask. Maryland Governor Parris Glendenning has imposed a ban on discharging firearms recreationally in four counties there. Law-enforcement officials in Maryland said the restrictions would help limit public reports of gunshots, which could distract police as they hunt for the sniper. An official with the Virginia Department of Game and...

AP Top News at 11:28 a.m. EDT Thursday, October 17, 2002 U.S. Offers Iraq Resolution DealUNITED NATIONS (AP) – Facing strong opposition from dozens of nations, the United States has backed down from its demand that a new U.N. resolution must authorize military force if Baghdad fails to cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors, diplomats told The Associated Press on Thursday. Instead, the United States is now floating a compromise that would give inspectors a chance to test Iraq's will to cooperate on the ground. The new compromise also drops tough wording explicitly threatening Iraq upfront, said the diplomats, who spoke...

Shueyb Mossa Jokhan wept Friday as his attorney read an apology to the Jewish community and the state of Florida for the Hollywood man's role in a plot to blow up local Jewish-owned businesses and power plants as well as Mount Rushmore.''To the Jewish community and the state of Florida I would like to apologize for what I have said and done,'' attorney Philip Horowitz read from Jokhan's written statement shortly before U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas sentenced Jokhan to four years and 10 months in federal prison.``To the brave men and women of the U.S. armed forces, I am...

Federal authorities arrested a Jordanian national possibly linked to Mohamed Atta, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, at a Hollywood train station early Thursday.Mohammed Amin, who sources say has a dozen aliases, was arrested as he boarded an Amtrak train with a ticket to Palatka, a town of 10,000 people 60 miles south of Jacksonville.Federal sources told WTVJ-NBC 6 that Amin's final destination might have been Washington, D.C.When Amin showed up for his 11:01 a.m. train, three FBI agents and two Immigration and Naturalization Service agents were waiting for him.They later transported Amin to Krome Detention Center in Miami-Dade,...

Royal Palm Beach · Police issued a bulletin Monday morning after receiving a report that six men were overheard discussing plans to travel to the Fort Lauderdale- Hollywood International Airport and "blowing things up." No government agency reached Monday could confirm the veracity of the report. No arrests or incidents at the airport in Broward County had been reported late Monday. (snip) The resident said the men were talking at a shopping center at Southern Boulevard and Royal Palm Beach Boulevard about 10 a.m. and transferring black bags from one vehicle to another. "They were speaking in Arabic about blowing...

The real reasons for our invasion of Iraq have been — and will be — only partially spelled out by the administration. The president triumphed at the United Nations by proving that, even on the U.N.'s own legal and multilateral terms, an invasion is justified. But we are not going into Iraq to protect the credibility of United Nations resolutions. We are going into Iraq to stop Saddam Hussein from passing weapons of mass destruction to terrorists who will use them against the United States. The president, it is true, made that very plain last week at the United Nations....

Two men from Pakistan and Sri Lanka were held without bail Friday on charges that they smuggled Middle Easterners into the United States through third countries for $20,000 each. Iqbal Munawar and Chelliah Sri Kajamukam were arrested late Thursday at Miami International Airport on charges filed in New York, federal authorities said.They made federal court appearances Friday and were ordered to return to court for bond hearings Thursday.An Indian businessman led the smuggling ring, which illegally flew people to Miami and New York and carried them to the United States by boat, FBI agent Timothy Ryan wrote in a court...

FORT LAUDERDALE · Comment No. 834: "Racism is alive and well." The written remark on Fort Lauderdale's recent poll of employees was not surprising. But it went on: "Promotions are done by race. White males are overpassed." The survey, released publicly this week, is the first large-scale inquiry into the minds of city employees since racial tensions in the work force erupted into rallies and lawsuits. Strikingly, many of the comments employees volunteered at the end of the survey dealt with discrimination against whites, or "reverse discrimination." Employee after employee complained that racism fever had spread through the workplace, causing...

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent 6-3 decision in Atkins v. Virginia decreed it was now an unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment to execute a mentally retarded person. The majority's rationale was that a national consensus had developed that such a practice was abhorrent and should be stopped. The reasoning by which the court majority reached this decision was rebuked in a stinging dissent by Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia might also find it interesting to discover that some of the data the court pointed to as justification for their decision was simply wrong.Not only was it mistaken, but it was also...

JACKSONVILLE - (AP) -- Federal and state officials said Thursday that rumors circulating about the presence of al Qaeda cells in Jacksonville were unfounded.The stories spread after an interview aired Thursday on NBC's Today Show in which Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz discussed possible terrorist links in Afghanistan, Hamburg, Germany and Jacksonville.''They're burrowed into some 60 countries around the world,'' Wolfowitz told NBC host Matt Lauer when asked about the al Qaeda threat. ``They had headquarters in Hamburg, Germany, and in Jacksonville, Florida -- not just in Afghanistan.''The Florida Department of Law Enforcement called a news conference to help...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - As the United States pushes for Yasser Arafat's ouster, Saudi Arabia rejected any meddling in Arab affairs, saying only the Palestinians can choose their leader. Saudi's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Abdullah, was quoted by officials as saying that the oil-rich Gulf kingdom "rejects any intervention by any side in Arab internal affairs, and on top of it the affairs of the Palestinian people, who alone have the right to choose their leadership." Abdullah's comments were passed on by officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, following his meeting with Spanish Defense Minister Federico Trillo in...

American strategy in the greater Middle East is at a turning point. The hesitant, at times contradictory, efforts by President Bush and his aides to calm the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have produced nothing of substance. The administration must now pursue other methods of preventing the region from becoming a chaotic platform for greater global terrorism. That means more reliance on U.S. military might to support diplomacy. Events pull Bush toward a strategy of transforming the region by establishing a greatly expanded and intrusive U.S. military presence there. American forces would stay for years to help develop and shield new and democratic...

The room in the Rayburn House Office Building where congressional staffers on the Judiciary Committee were to have received a briefing on Visa Express from State Department officials yesterday afternoon sat empty. No, the event did not suffer from lack of demand. In fact, quite the contrary: A large number of staffers were planning to cut away from their busy schedules to learn more about the program that let in three of the Sept. 11th hijackers in the three months it was in operation before 9/11 in just one country: Saudi Arabia. At 2:25pm Friday, an e-mail went out to...

Likening current Palestinian leaders to Nazis, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Thursday for the forced exile of Yasser Arafat and the destruction of his government. Speaking before capacity crowds in Palm Beach and Broward counties, Netanyahu also said that a reported plan by the Bush administration that will create a framework for an interim Palestinian state was a mistake. "We're facing a bestial savagery, inculcated madness, a cult of death of suicide and blood that is meant to kill ... as many of our own people as possible," said Netanyahu, referring to Palestinian suicide bombers who have taken...

Many Republicans think that the president's proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security — and in the process to reorganize a large chunk of the federal government — is, in addition to whatever merits it may have as a policy matter, a smart political move. Congressional Democrats will be too tied up with the reorganization to talk about Social Security, the environment, prescription drugs, and other issues they would like to use in this fall's campaigns. Instead, they'll be talking about security, a Republican issue. Tod Lindberg makes this argument in this week's Standard. It seems to be plausible...

Since news of my NR story called "Catching the Visa Express" hit the airwaves last Thursday, Consular Affairs — which oversees visa issuance and implemented the open-door policy for Saudi terrorists — has come under fire from both the public and Capitol Hill for the Visa Express program, which is how three of the Sept. 11 hijackers got in this country. Despite mounting criticism, Consular Affairs (CA) took fully one week to respond to the charges leveled at it about Visa Express. On The Big Story with John Gibson on Fox News yesterday, the new PR flack for CA, Ed...

<p>What did the FBI know of possible terrorist attacks before September 11? The CIA? The White House? President Bush's dog Spot? The media and Congress are demanding answers, and not without reason if the purpose is to try to ensure terrible mistakes aren't repeated.</p>

President Bush devoted his Saturday radio address this week to home-ownership and, in particular, the racial "gap" therein. He declared that "while nearly three-quarters of all white Americans own their own homes, less than half of all African Americans and Hispanic Americans are homeowners." And so, of course, we must "close this home-ownership gap." Not only the government, but the private sector, must be mobilized "in a major nationwide effort to increase minority ownership." He gave a speech in Atlanta two days later to the same effect, adding a graceless attempt to tie home-ownership to the war on terrorism. (I...

June 19, 2002, 7:42 AM CDT WASHINGTON -- Even as authorities played down uncorroborated reports of an Al-Qaida attack on the Southern California coast, the FBI was girding for possible attacks on July 4 and canvassing major celebrations around the country for signs of trouble. The FBI "is assuming a heightened security posture" because of a rash of worrisome intelligence reports indicating that major Independence Day celebrations could be attacked, according to a confidential law enforcement alert reviewed by The Los Angeles Times. Many of the intelligence reports -- which could stem from interrogations of captured Al-Qaida operatives -- are...

One relative describes him as immature and says he was set up. But federal prosecutors say he threatened to blow up the White House and a Florida power plant. Safraz Jehaludi was arrested by U.S. Secret Service agents on Monday at Kemper Risk National Services in Plantation, where he worked as a data entry technician. Federal prosecutors say the Miramar man, 22, sent an anonymous tip from his work computer to the FBI Internet desk on May 31, saying he had overheard “Safraz Jehaludi” state he was planning to blow up a Florida Power & Light Co. power plant and...

The former leader of the Fort Lauderdale mosque where Jose Padilla worshiped said Sunday that the terrorism suspect's transformation to extremism probably came after he left South Florida for Egypt.Raed Awad, who served as imam of Masjid Al-Iman from 1994 to 2000, said Padilla was eager to learn more about Islam and had won a scholarship to Al-Azhar University in Egypt.''There are programs at universities in Egypt where converts can go and study about Islam and learn Arabic,'' Awad said. ``The plane ticket to fly over there is only a couple of hundred dollars. I myself have studied in Egypt.''Awad,...

Muslim leaders and civil libertarians on Monday condemned the government's secretive detention of a computer programmer from Sunrise, while the FBI explored his ties to accused "dirty bomber" José Padilla. The federal agencies investigating Adham Hassoun, 40, a Palestinian from Lebanon, have refused to comment publicly on their investigation, underscoring post-Sept. 11 profiling concerns among Muslims and civil rights advocates. Hassoun, who was arrested Wednesday, is being held at the Fort Lauderdale city jail on Immigration and Naturalization Service charges that he failed to maintain his immigration status. After speaking with Hassoun by phone Sunday, Muslim community activist Sofian Abdelaziz...

<p>In the months that have followed the murderous attacks launched on September 11, President Bush has repeatedly, and correctly, emphasized that the war on terror must be fought both at home and abroad. He has recently underscored his determination to make advances on these two fronts by creating a real capability for homeland defense and by adopting, where necessary, pre-emptive measures against our enemies overseas.</p>

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghans lined up behind microphones for a second day Saturday to air gripes, grievances and ideas about their nation's future as the tribal council to select a new government evolved into more of a national conversation than a decision-making body.With the election of Hamid Karzai late Thursday as president of an 18-month transitional government, the loya jirga, or grand council, turned its attention to choosing a Cabinet and a 111-seat legislature.But by midmorning, those subjects had not come up. Instead, delegates spoke on a variety of topics, and their message rang clear: Listen to us."If people want...

José Padilla’s conversion to Islam could have helped him leave behind a life of violence and thuggery that saw him in and out of jails. Instead, his new religion and his old ways apparently combined to make him the perfect candidate for terrorism, according to prosecutors who say the former South Floridian, 31, plotted with al-Qaida to build a radioactive bomb that could have rained nuclear material over city blocks. A decade ago, he was planning a new life for himself and his future wife. Both converted to Islam and Padilla took it very seriously, asking questions and attending local...

What do you mean — you're establishing a special department for it?" Mrs. Thatcher is supposed to have shouted at some hapless cabinet minister in the days of her glory. "I told you to deal with the problem, not to make it worse. Once we have an entire government department whose size, pay, and perquisites depend upon the existence of the problem, we'll never get rid of it." One need not go so far as to argue that President Bush's creation of a homeland-security department will necessarily promote national insecurity. Bureaucrats will not want to make it easier for terrorists...

The American gang kid who now calls himself Abdullah al Muhajir, accused of plotting radioactive terrorism against his country, lived in South Florida from 1990 to 1998. He landed in the Broward County Jail. He converted to Islam here.He also liked fast cars. He had his real name, Jose, tattooed on his right arm. He possessed a silver .38-caliber revolver and a hair-trigger temper.''He started to go for his gun when I went to arrest him,'' said Sunrise police Lt. Charles Vitale, who vividly recalled a 1991 road rage incident. ``I'm not surprised to hear he got in more trouble....

I should begin by saying that I'm hopeless with wiring diagrams, and unlike so many Washingtonians I have never been fascinated by the bureaucratic balance of power, which no doubt explains in part why I was such a lousy bureaucrat myself. But I've got lots of experience with counterterrorism, and I do not believe that you can fix what's wrong with our counterterrorist program by rewiring the federal bureaucracy, however necessary that may be.The problem with our intelligence services is not structure, it's culture. For more than 25 years they've been hammered into brain death by the scandal-crazed media...

Supreme Command Soldiers, Statesmen and Leadership in Wartime by Eliot A. Cohen Free Press, 272 pp., $25 EVERY SO OFTEN a book appears just at the moment when it is most needed--even though that moment was entirely unpredicted. Such a book is Eliot Cohen's "Supreme Command," a superb study of civilian commanders in chief in times of war by the nation's leading scholar of military-civilian relations. The book was planned when Cohen was teaching at the Naval War College in the 1980s, but it appears as George W. Bush is faced with the most difficult and momentous decisions in our...

WASHINGTON (AP) - FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III told Congress on Thursday his agency needs to devote additional agents, money and time as it works to meet its "paramount mission of prevention" in an age of terrorism. "The need for change was apparent even before Sept. 11. It has become more urgent since then," he told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a nationally televised hearing. "I believe our culture must change as well." The FBI chief spoke as President Bush readied a prime time speech to announce changes in the system he establish last fall in response to the...